Glenn Whipp

Dickinson’s first feature is so assured in every other regard that you can give him a pass for these interludes. Urchin establishes him as a filmmaker to watch: a storyteller willing to look at a thorny subject and admit that there are no easy answers.

Bigelow making a movie in which most of the story takes place in rooms full of people talking would seem like a misuse of the talents of one of our great action directors. It’s not. A House of Dynamite is a tightly wound dynamo, elevated by her production team.

The magic trick of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is that you find yourself caring deeply for Linda, thanks to Byrne’s vivid, impassioned performance. You can’t shake her.

Baker wrote the part for her, and Madison returned the favor with a star-making performance, leaning into Ani’s audacity while revealing the fragile façade, the vulnerabilities and self-deception lurking underneath.

Pugh gives Alma an edgy unpredictability that almost makes you believe some of the implausible things she does. And the expressive Garfield can convey water-eyed empathy so deftly that you know Tobias would be laid low if Almut so much as stubbed her toe on the leg of a coffee table.

While it’s easy to view “Axel F” as a calculated cash grab, it’s clear that Murphy possesses an affection for the title character. From the get-go, Murphy’s portrayal hinged on Axel’s ability to warmly connect with everyone he meets.

You expect that the film will boast exceptional stuntwork — and it does. At its best, though, it’s a romantic comedy that coasts on the charisma of its two appealing leads, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.

Rustin is on firmer footing when detailing the creative spit-balling that created the framework that made the March on Washington possible, as well as the competing egos and interests that almost doomed it. You’d need a 10-part limited series to really do all this justice, but the movie puts across the complexities with a nimble shorthand.

The Creator itself eventually tries one’s patience with its incessant demands that you feel for characters and relationships that it hasn’t taken the care to develop.

Marnier could have taken another pass at the film’s secondary characters (the upcoming thriller “Saltburn” has the same problem with its dysfunctional clan), and whatever notions he’s trying to put across about the patriarchy don’t quite land. But he has a star in the sparkling Calamy.

Yes, You Hurt My Feelings explores the incident of its title and the risks and limits of total honesty in a relationship. But it’s also a funny and incisive look at middle-age malaise

Part of the appeal of Ticket to Paradise is seeing Roberts and Clooney together before they — and this type of glossy studio entertainment — become extinct.

Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning social satire, Triangle of Sadness, is many things: a cautionary tale about the perils of slurping shellfish on rough seas, a blunt (as in dull) critique of the one percent, a (wasted) opportunity to hear Woody Harrelson espouse the tenets of Karl Marx and a pessimistic suggestion that people — both the oppressors and the oppressed — share a fundamental willingness to exploit each other given the right circumstances.

It’s easy to give in to despair. What We Feed People makes clear is that you can help with a simple, small act of empathy.

Because Heder — whose previous work includes the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black” and “Glow” and feature “Tallulah” — is so adept at establishing the emotional bonds between the film’s close-knit family, the presence of all these conventions doesn’t matter.

Kid Candidate isn’t about winning as much as a reinforcement of the notion that apathy is the death of democracy, a lesson best learned, as Pedigo comes to understand, when you’re young.

You may know Thompson as a member of the Roots and as the musical director for “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” If you’ve read his book, “Mo’ Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove,” you’re aware that he’s also inquisitive and a first-rate music geek, making him the perfect person to crate-dig through the musical and cultural history documented in this film. His respect and enthusiasm for the material jumps off the screen.

If you care about Sparks, this movie is heaven, a long-overdue answer to the group’s 1994 song “When Do I Get to Sing ‘My Way.’” (With this doc, Ron and Russell have to feel, at least a little bit, “like Sinatra felt.”) If you don’t know about Sparks, Wright has created an introduction that gleefully demolishes any barrier you might think you have toward their music.

For all the struggle that takes place in this movie, it is its quiet grace that you most remember. Minari shares its secrets with a whisper, and as it unfolds, you find yourself leaning into it, enraptured.

Fatman isn’t a lump of coal. More like a fruitcake your neighbor dropped off in early December that’s left on the counter through the new year, its red and green cherries hardening into buckshot before being hauled out to the curb with the Christmas tree.

Throughout the film, Springsteen lavishes his bandmates with praise (“they can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee”) in voiceover segments that feel a bit more shopworn than when he unleashes them from the stage. But when Zimny lets the images speak for themselves, “Letter to You” achieves a moving power.

American Utopia arrives 36 years after Jonathan Demme’s “Stop Making Sense,” which documented three shows the Talking Heads played at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater in 1983 and just might be the greatest concert movie ever made. Until, that is, American Utopia. Rank them 1A and 1B.

Rachel Mason performs a nice bit of misdirection with the film, starting with humorous juxtapositions of this nice, elderly Jewish couple running a gay porn shop and then moving toward a poignant story of acceptance.

D.W. Young’s lovely film introduces us to several sellers of rare books, New Yorkers, all of them smart and self-aware enough to know how they’re perceived. (There hasn’t been this much tweed in a movie since “Gosford Park.”)

What distinguishes “Tigertail” is the way Yang explores Pin-Jui’s earlier life as a means of showing how duty and obligation brought him to that place. And as Yang takes us on that journey with him, he also offers a low-key lesson for redemption — examine the past to escape regret.

Director Francesco Zippel doesn’t challenge Friedkin, letting him spin his life’s work as he pleases.

The considerable achievement of “Birth of the Cool” comes from the way it understands those words and places them in the context of American history. You’ll want to listen to Miles’ music after watching the film and, when you do, you might feel it a little deeper.

Jawline provides an evenhanded examination of celebrity and loneliness in the digital age.

Crosby’s spirit remains vital, and he’s determined to fly that freak flag into that good night.

Zagar, judiciously adapting the book with Daniel Kitrosser, submerges the audience into their world from the outset, presenting a fluid stream of bittersweet and vivid episodes from the family’s life that gradually build into something profound.

In its own modest way, it’s one of the year’s bravest films.

As a portrait of a man who surrendered his career and much of his life to the service of a master, Filmworker proves compelling, particularly for those with a passing interest in Kubrick.

To complain that nothing much happens here or ponder the film's curiously tame view of university life (Rodney Dangerfield would most definitely get no respect here) is to miss the point of the movie, which is to serve as a vehicle for McCarthy, spotlighting her warm, screwball spirit and irrepressible physical comedy.

"Only Living Boy" fails to convince as a character study, romance or love letter to the CBGB-era New York City. It drops a plot bombshell close to the end of its 88-minute running time, but the filmmakers haven’t laid the track to make it plausible.

Even if you’re familiar with the facts, Icarus casts the depth of deception with an immediacy that’s often astounding.

With Grace’s sure hand and the strong work of lead actors Wyatt Russell and Alex Karpovsky, Folk Hero & Funny Guy is the kind of road trip movie where it’s a pleasure to ride shotgun.

Director Charlie McDowell, who co-wrote the film with Justin Lader, sidesteps the material’s more intriguing ideas, ultimately settling for a conventional story about love, loss and second chances. The disappointment comes not in the lack of answers but in the relative absence of audacity in tackling such a trippy concept.

That Hell or High Water makes you empathize with and understand (though not excuse) each member of this disparate quartet is a tribute to the way Taylor Sheridan’s screenplay works equally well as a thriller, character study and pointed social commentary.

An insightful and wildly entertaining look at the wrestlers who ply their trade south of the border.

For a movie about the creator of some of the most pointed, controversial comedies in television history, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You has a curious habit of sidestepping some of the thornier and more interesting aspects of its subject’s life.

Love & Friendship is, first and foremost, a master class on the art of comic timing, in its filmmaking and acting.

The movie has plenty of the expected fun with its parade of B-movie, VFX-created creatures — a werewolf, giant praying mantis and an army of angry garden gnomes, among them — but it also possesses a sly self-awareness.

When the plot circles back to those opening moments, the movie finds a momentum that ends spectacularly. And again: Benicio Del Toro is playing Pablo Escobar. What more do you need?

That cost can be seen in the tight strain on Hawke's face. An actor with the gift of gab (most notably in his collaborations with Richard Linklater), Hawke here delivers a nuanced turn as a man on the threshold of emotional ruin.

The joy on display here is contagious.

Director David Lewis' movie functions as mostly a highlights reel rather than an exhaustive look at Hentoff's life.

The movie presents the best possible version of the event without the massive lines, drugs, drunkenness and hellish traffic.

Block's work, so often ahead of the curve (Woodward and Bernstein marvel at how he understood Watergate before them), always comes shining through, revealing an artist who made it his mission to champion the "little guy" and speak truth to power.

A tonal jumble, veering between forced farce and tired, rom-com beats, with little feeling real or true.

Kramer, 10 years removed from his lone critical success, "The Cooler," and writer Adam Minarovich aren't exactly aping Tarantino, if only because they don't have the talent or inclination to aim that high.

Assaulted: Civil Rights Under Fire is a reasoned counter to Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" and, as such, a constructive addition to the current national firearms debate.

Baker's transformation from "spiritual father" to megalomaniac follows a familiar path of brainwashing and hedonism.

What really elevates the film, though, is the crucial context that Payne provides to explain — but not justify — the pirates' actions.

The film, directed by first-timer Rocky Powell, has a different happy ending in mind, one that adheres to rom-com formulas in a manner that should give it a second life on basic cable. Just don't expect to fall hard for it.

It's a tad overstuffed, but never lacks for interest. And Saulter, who serves as his own director of photography, has a poet's eye for detail, capturing the beauty of his native country, even in its most extreme poverty.

The film's re-creations, some involving actors and some the girls themselves, aren't always successful, but the truths at their core are rock-solid. Illuminating and ultimately hopeful, despite the horrible circumstances depicted, Girl Rising stands as a testament to the power of information.

Screenwriter Chris Sparling worked in confined spaces to far better effect before with the minimalist Ryan Reynolds thriller "Buried." He must have used his best ideas there.

Cult comedy team Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim take the mechanics of the Funny or Die website and stretch it past the breaking point with their movie.

Gone is also your hard-earned money if you buy a ticket to this slack piece of work, a movie that makes "Murder on the Orient Express" feel like "The Silence of the Lambs" by comparison.

A brisk creature-feature that ditches the series' dreary mythology in favor of a more direct, action-oriented approach.

Jang and screenwriter Park Sang-yeon recognize the situation's senselessness but can't resist ramping up the melodrama and celebrating the heroism of the battle-fatigued soldiers. These contradictory impulses, combined with the film's undercooked characters, make The Front Line a war movie not quite worth engaging.

Abduction is just the third movie John Singleton has directed in the past decade, and it contains neither the passion nor the competence of his two previous genre efforts - "2 Fast 2 Furious" and "Four Brothers."

That there is little difference in tone between the end credits gag reel and the previous 100 minutes represents a triumph of consistency that Burt Reynolds, even in his heyday, never achieved.

The road trip provides some spectacular images, but it's the two protagonists that hold the most interest. Their reactions are unpredictable; their insights, illuminating and often quite funny.

That Soul Surfer rates as a giant leap for this team speaks well about the conviction the movie's actors bring to the material as well as the respect afforded the Hamiltons and their faith.

Farewell offers intrigue, simmering tension.

The animals are impossibly adorable, but never threaten to upset the film's delicate balance between magic and a more sobering reality. It's a fairy tale in the best tradition.

Director Elizabeth Allen coaxes fine performances from her cast young and old, stumbling only when relying too heavily on musical cues (Katrina & the Waves' "Walking on Sunshine" needs to be permanently retired) and in the film's awkward CGI flights of imaginative fancy. Other than that, the movie is, to quote its young heroine, "terrifical."

Wilson's amiable vocal work keeps the predictability from becoming too grating.

As for the movie itself, it is better than the original "Cats & Dogs." But so is a rabies shot.

The girl world found in crass comedies such as You Again, movies that reduce women to sad clichés and a uniform level of bad behavior that would appall the cast members of "Jersey Shore."